


Secrets

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Prumano Secret Santa 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5633632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone is stirring up trouble in the kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> My gift for Curreeus for the Prumano Secret Santa. Mano's gonna get on me bc now I'm technically late. In my defense, it's 12:30 am on the 4th, so it'll at least be there bright and early for the morning!
> 
> The prompt was "Lovino is secretly really good with animals, and/or Gilbert is secretly really good at cooking; one walks in on the other doing the thing and is pleasantly surprised." I went with Gilbert baking.

It was the night before the annual Beilschmidt-Edelstein-et al. Christmas party, and all through the cramped Berlin apartment two creatures were stirring, which, thinking about it, wasn't all that extraordinary because Berlin is a big city and it was only six o’clock.

Lovino, a slender brunette whose hair curled at the tips of his ears and the nape of his neck, sat at the kitchen island and stared, dumbfounded. It was the same expression he’s worn since walking in earlier that evening. He’d barely been through his usual, “I’m home, you son of a bitch,” when a peculiar scent tickled his nose. The smell of sugar and flour, and beneath that that of citrus and chocolate and cloves. Someone, he realized, was baking.

It wasn’t an earth shattering revelation; he was no stranger to the kitchen himself. But in the two years since he’d been courted and cajoled into moving to Germany, it had been solely his domain. He wasn’t sure what Gilbert had done for food before him. Evidence suggested a sickening combination of cheap take-out and frozen dinners, and the thought of it turned Lovino’s stomach. Disgusting but understandable— the man could barely fry an egg. 

Imagine his surprise then, when he stepped through the open doorway and found Gilbert scowling, aproned, and surrounded by trays of cooling baked goods. Measuring cups and mixing bowls piled neatly in the sink. The floor was spotless but the counters, and Gil himself, seemed muted beneath a thin coat of flour. Lovino counted at least four kinds of cookies and something similar-to-but-not-quite-a cinnamon bun before sinking onto a bar stool, speechless.

And there he stayed, silent save for the occasional huff as the other danced around him. Gilbert shifted his creations from baking sheets to cooling racks, from cooling racks to Tupperware. He washed the dishes only to immediately dirty the two largest mixing bowls. In one he creamed together wet ingredients into a smooth paste. In the other he measured out various dry ingredients, added a generous amount of cocoa powder, and carefully folded the whole mess into the first bowl until he had Lovino begrudgingly admitted to himself was a very nice looking cake batter. Like, featured on a cooking show during prime time television good.

After sliding two round pans into the oven and setting the timer on his phone, Gilbert finally, _finally_ spoke. “I’m going to _kill_ Ludwig. Seriously, if you say you’re going to do something, do it. Don’t call up your godsend of a brother all ‘I know I promised to do the baking this year but this bullshit and that bullshit came up and _please save me, Gilbert_!’” He emphasized this last note by tossing the dish rag into the sink. It landed with a wet thud.

Lovino, for his part, nodded his head ruefully and added in an even voice, “Little brothers.”

“Little brothers is right.”

Silence took hold again. Gilbert went back to cleaning and Lovino went back to staring at him like he had sprouted another head, two more arms, and a five foot boner all at once. Cleaning Gil was nowhere near as curious as master pastry chef Gil though, and his attention strayed. He counted the stacks of plastic containers. Five high, four long, and two deep. It must have taken him _hours_.

“You’ve been doing this all day, haven’t you?” It wasn’t Lovino’s fault it came out accusatory— Gilbert had been hiding this particular talent for years. And if any of it tasted even half as good as it looked, then Lovino would make sure to keep bitching about it for a long time. How dare that bastard hold out on him?

Gilbert answered without looking up. “Yep.”

“You made a literal mountain of cookies and shit. Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?” Lovino pushed. His brow furrowed, his bottom lip jutted out.

“You’ve never seen them eat before. It’s like a bunch of pack animals, I swear to god.” Suddenly a metal bowl appeared in his hands. Gilbert cursed and set it on the counter. “Shit, that’s cold.” He upended a whole carton of whipping cream into it and finished it off with a splash of orange liqueur. The sharp scent of it cut through the room and wrinkled Lovino’s nose.

“You’re not using the electric mixer?”

Gilbert paused, whisk in hand. Red eyes met green and he shrugged. “Tastes better if you do it the old fashioned way.”

“You’re only making more work for yourself.”

“I don’t mind it.”

“Well good for fucking you, then.” That time Lovino’s voice creeped into full on petulance.

Gilbert looked up again. His lips curled in a lazy smirk. “Something wrong, Liebchen?”

Well, no one could ever accuse Lovino Vargas of keeping his feelings bottled up inside. “Yes! All this time you’ve been some kind of baking god asshole and you never told me! You stop everything at the drop of a fucking hat for your loser brother but you’ve never made _me_ anything and I’ve never even _bothered_ you about it! Because I didn’t know! Because you can’t even boil pasta right, but all the sudden you’re some—some idiot savant with a cookie cutter!” He realized then he was on his feet, the same traitorous feet that had carried him mere inches away from Gilbert. Gilbert, who looked so goddamn _amused_ that all the rage boiling over inside him collapsed in on itself and left Lovino little more than vaguely annoyed. “We’re not supposed to keep secrets from each other,” he added lamely. “Especially fucking delicious ones.”

A part of Gilbert knew he should feel ashamed. Another part of him thought Lovino’s jealousy was fucking adorable, and maybe even a little hot. A small war raged on a mental battlefield, but in the end the part one won out over part two and he gently tugged Lovino to his chest. He knew he’d made the right decision when he felt the smaller man sag against him and bury his face in his flour stained shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “No more secrets.” Then he quipped, voice a quiet tease, “Especially fucking delicious ones.”

Lovino pinched his side. “Damn right.” He repeated, just as softly, “No more secrets.”


End file.
